In their own words: Meet the Democratic and Republican candidates vying to represents Colorado's 8th Congressional District

Colorado's Congressional District 8 is being called one of the five most competitive districts in the country this election. The newly created district runs along Interstate 25 north and east of the Denver metro area, encompassing parts of Adams, Weld and Larimer counties.

Democratic state Rep. Yadira Caraveo and Republican state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer are running to represent the district.

In their own words, both candidates explained why they're running and what their priorities will be if they are elected.

Barb Kirkmeyer
I grew up on a dairy farm. My parents, when we turned 9, they didn't give us a heifer calf, they sold us a heifer calf. And we were immediately put into debt = $100. And ... we learned about debt. We learned how to pay off our debt, we learned the importance of hard work. That's what my parents taught us. And in the America that I grew up in, when you worked hard, it meant opportunity. And right now this nation is in a tailspin. My grandchildren, your children and grandchildren, all of us, we deserve better. We need to quit going into debt. We need to balance the budget, we need to become energy independent again, and we need to secure the border. We're $30 trillion in debt, over $30 trillion in debt in this country. That's $90,000 for every man, woman and child. ... Medicare for the elderly, though, we're going to insure it and strengthen it. I don't think you can pull the rug out from folks who are on Medicare. ... I think looking at this Inflation Reduction Act -- what a joke. It's not a reduction act. They're not reducing inflation. So I think we need to go back in and look at why are we hiring 87,000 IRS agents? Why are we beefing up the IRS? When we should be beefing up the border. I've been down to Texas. I've seen where the wall ends. There's a farmer who lives there. We met him. And he talked about the differences of people coming across, just walking across the river and how it used to be they would stop at his farm and say, "Hey, can we get a job?" Now he said they're just streaming through. They know where the wall ends. ... Then I think with referring to the Dreamers: make sure that there's a process for them to get to citizenship because they were brought here at no fault of their own. I think the other thing is we need to have a fair, rigorous process for people to get to citizenship, but that needs to be a fair, rigorous process. ... And then when I talk to the farmers in my area, whether it's the dairy farmers or the agriculture production folks, they're like, "We need to look at the guest worker program." When we secure our border, we also help stop the flow of drugs that are coming across that border, which is immense. ... With regard to fentanyl, if this state isn't willing to make it to zero possession and distribution, we can do that at the federal level. ... Part of our commitment to America covers that we would provide for additional training and recruitment of law enforcement. We're going to fund on this side, we're going to figure out where we cut on the other side, right? ... I don't think you will find a county commissioner anywhere else that has approved more solar, more wind or even -- to some degree now -- oil and gas than I have. So I'm all of the above. We need to look at everything. But we need to open up and unleash domestic energy here in the United States. I would support a limit on abortion after 15 weeks. From my perspective, if I can save a few lives versus saving no lives, I'm going to go save a few lives. That's what I'm going to do.

Yadira Caraveo
I was a pediatrician. That's really what I thought that I was going to be doing my entire life is giving back to my community through medicine and taking care of kids. It's something that I think came from my parents' story and my background -- they immigrated here from Mexico in the 1970s. I went to med school here, did my residency in New Mexico, where we really emphasize advocacy training, making sure that when you're taking care of kids, it's not just being in the hospital or being in clinic, it's advocating for them outside of there, because they don't really talk to legislators, they can't vote. ... And then I came back to Colorado and decided to be a private practice pediatrician. I remember one particular day after having a big argument with an insurance company about why I knew better what medication a kid should be on than they did following their checklist, but I put the phone down and said, "All right, that's it, I'm going to run for office." And so I ran for the state legislature. But Colorado is just one state out of 50. And especially when you're looking at health care, and accessibility and affordability, we really need more people who have treated patients, who have seen the struggles that they go through every day, to be there and really try to reform the system. And I think overall, we just need more normal regular people running for Congress. ... The other thing that really convinced me was that in Colorado, we've never had a Latina represent us in Congress. And this is going to be a heavily Latino district at 39%. I have cousins and friends who are DACA recipients and they've grown up here, they're American and every single way other than a piece of paper. And so that is definitely going to be a focus as the child of immigrants and Congress. Really the top issues are going to continue being what I focused on in the legislature, it's making life more fair and more equitable for people from the working class, because that's how I grew up. So I've really focused on lowering cost, in particular, around health care. For example, with my prescription drug affordability bill last year -- that's really looking at the cost of prescription drugs in Colorado and setting a limit to those -- that would be something that I would be very interested in having the first bill that I carry in Congress. ... I'm also going to continue to focus on climate change. I know how dependent we are an oil and gas. That doesn't mean that we can't prepare for the future. And Colorado -- especially with the wind possibilities that we have, the sunshine that we have -- we really should be investing in renewable energy. ... We really need to be more precise when it comes to spending. What we have focused on in the legislature -- and what I have focused on -- is making sure that were spending it in the right areas. That when we cut spending, it's not at the federal level at the cost of Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security, and then the woman's right to choose is going to continue to be very important.